The current Sunday night block on Adult Swim is pretty surreal, but few shows emit the same kind of simultaneous terror and hilarity oozing from The Shivering Truth, currently airing its second season. Destined to be a claymation cult classic, Vernon Chatman’s Lynchian horror anthology is darkly funny, but it is also wildly disturbing. The show is not for everybody, but for anyone up for a different kind of late night TV, this head trip is definitely worth taking.
The Shivering Truth consists of several interconnecting vignettes spread across multiple episodes that run at a mere 11 minutes. The plot lines play out like surrealistic horror films, but the sheer absurdity of the images being plastered onto the screen makes it hard not to laugh uncomfortably. The storylines cover quite a range, from a nightmarish creature secretly living in a hole inside of an office worker's head to a foreign factory worker somehow in touch on the phone with a sassy American woman.
The show makes it difficult for the viewer to interpret what is funny and what is completely horrifying. For instance, there is a sequence in Season 2 Episode 2 where a man goes to a shop in order to purchase a sex doll. The shop worker is able to read the customer's thoughts and creates a doll made to look like the man's old crush. The catch is that an extra doll is thrown in with the purchase, and this doll is made to look exactly like the man's mother.
This is an idea that most people would never want to think about, and that's why it's included in this show. It's such an uncomfortable thought that no one's brain would enjoy being taken there. That is why it's unclear whether it's appropriate to laugh or be horrified since the show is taking a situation that no one would ever anticipate to be suddenly forced into their brain, and most of the laughter that is done while watching this series is out of shock.
This stop-motion anthology feels sort of like sleep paralysis. For instance, there is a scene in the Season 1 Episode 5 where a young boy is listening to a conch shell and hearing people living their lives through it. Things turn violent, and the boy is addressed by the voices, who seem to recognize him. The lead characters here have no control over the events that are unfolding around them, much like someone with sleep paralysis. Everybody's had a dream where things don't feel right and everyone around them seems to be in on a scheme. That's exactly the vibe this show gives off, a feeling that the characters are unknowingly trapped in something far more nefarious than they can comprehend.
In 2005, Vernon Chatman created the twisted children's show parody, Wonder Showzen, which aired on MTV2. Wonder Showzen shows glimmers of the nihilistic surrealism present in The Shivering Truth, but it relies much more on edgy shock value rather than the truly unsettling and bizarre.
Even though it shows brilliance at times, Wonder Showzen falls back on desperate attempts in order to push the envelope by just being gross or offensive. The Shivering Truth is much more than a cheap gag. It's visceral and potent, creeping up on viewers when they least expect it and refusing to let go once it's got them.
Even though there hasn't been a ton of buzz around this claymation nightmare, many fine talents lent their voices throughout the two seasons. These include Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Trey Parker, Janeane Garofalo and Jordan Peele. Hearing these familiar voices helps add a further sense of delirium in this insane show by having recognizable talent interacting in the horrifying nightmares that are somehow so sickening and unexpected they end up being hilarious.
Created by Vernon Chatman, The Shivering Truth airs on Adult Swim Sundays at Midnight after Rick and Morty.